‘No worker is illegal’

Racist Arizona law sparks protests, boycott

By Paul Teitelbaum
Tucson, Ariz.

Arizona’s sweeping, racist anti-immigrant bill has unleashed a firestorm of outrage from Arizona’s oppressed communities. Even before Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law on April 23, Arizona students and youths had called for protests of all kinds. The May Day action is expected to demonstrate this outrage.

Nationally a “Boycott Arizona” movement is gaining steam. Arizona business leaders fear it will isolate Arizona and cut their profits as it expands to a worldwide movement denouncing the apartheid-like conditions the new Arizona law imposes.

In effect, the law legalizes racial profiling and criminalizes all undocumented people as “trespassers.” It also militarizes the border and contains provisions attacking day laborers, allows for the seizure of any vehicle used to transport an undocumented person, and calls for the arrest of anyone who provides assistance to an undocumented person.

President Barack Obama has already criticized the law as “misguided,” and it is possible for the federal government to take steps to supersede its provisions. The previous April 15, however, some 800 or more Department of Homeland Security and other federal agents brutally descended on Tucson’s oppressed communities. The feds terrorized families, stopping buses transporting children to school and setting up what amounted to a six-hour military occupation of the south side of the city.

Students set the fight-back example

In response to this repression and the legislature’s passing of the bill, a group of nine community college students from throughout Arizona courageously chained themselves to the state Capitol building in Phoenix on April 20, demanding Gov. Brewer veto the bill. The nine called for a national movement to employ nonviolent civil disobedience as the next phase of the Immigrant Rights Movement.

While carrying out civil disobedience, the students were arrested by Maricopa County deputies and hauled off to the jail run by the infamous anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Now known throughout the state as the Capitol Nine, the students were released early April 21.

Leilani Clark, a Pima Community College student and member of Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST), was one of the nine students arrested. Clark encouraged everyone to take action. Speaking on behalf of the Capitol Nine, Clark told Workers World: “Don’t be divided or delayed by different interpretations of how to act — just act. Walk out, protest, educate, boycott, march, sit in, carry out civil disobedience. Anything and everything. ASAP!”

In a news release published April 20, this is what the Nine said about SB 1070:

“Among other things, the bill would require law enforcement officers to investigate, detain and arrest people if there is ‘reasonable suspicion’ that a person may be undocumented. This would give police agents absolute power to racially profile on the basis of race, skin color, language, and/or accent. SB 1070 is only the latest attack that will turn Arizona into an apartheid state, where brown-skinned people are politically, legally and economically discriminated and segregated.”

In their statement, the Capitol Nine explained the importance of their action: “Arizona is ground zero for apartheid legislation and it must also be ground zero for organized action. ... Our purpose is to expose Arizona’s apartheid legislation and uphold our dignity and human rights.”

Protests continue in the thousands

By the afternoon of April 20, about 100 people had gathered in downtown Tucson to protest SB 1070 and to demand that the governor veto the bill. The next day, some 200 high school students walked out of class to protest the bill.

On April 22 thousands protested outside the Capitol in Phoenix, and other actions took place April 23 in Phoenix and Flagstaff demanding that Brewer veto the bill. Students, including many high school students, held a demonstration April 23 in Tucson, walking out of school to do it.

Even after the governor signed the bill into law, people remained in the streets, protested throughout the weekend and launched a Boycott Arizona campaign.

Racism, budget cuts, private prisons and border militarization

The whipping up of anti-immigrant racism and the passing of this law must be looked at in relationship to the economic crisis. Arizona, like most other states, is implementing severe budget cuts that eliminate needed social programs, raise college and university tuition, close hospitals and schools and lay off hundreds of state workers while forcing the remaining workers to take a wage cut through furloughs.

The budget also calls for increases in every imaginable fee, from the use of state park facilities to the collection of trash. The devastating effects of these budget cuts will mean more workers losing their homes and their jobs, the continuing decay of infrastructure and a rapid decline in the living standard of workers. Although it is the capitalist system that is the root cause of this economic crisis, the false message inundating the people is that “illegal immigration” causes these problems.

Meanwhile, the implementation of laws like SB 1070 provide a bonanza for the private prison industry. Companies like Corrections Corporation of America, which operates all the detention centers in Arizona, stand to make enormous gains. Keeping CCA’s prisons full keeps CCA’s profits coming in.

Wackenhut, Inc. will also benefit from this law, as they provide the transportation service that takes immigrants from the CCA detention centers and dumps them at the Mexican border.

The evening before signing SB 1070, Gov. Brewer signed an executive order allocating $10 million to the high-tech Border Security Enhancement Program. This is money that should be used to fund education and health care but instead will be used to further militarize the border.

The executive order was accompanied by calls from Arizona’s U.S. Sens. John McCain and John Kyl for the Obama administration to send at least 3,000 more National Guard troops to the border.

In the most recent development, a bill was introduced in the Arizona State Senate that would allow the State of Arizona to allocate $200,000 to fund a volunteer force — like the fascist-like Minutemen — to patrol the border.

Boycott Arizona!

At a luncheon of business owners in Tucson, Gov. Brewer gave a keynote address. While protesters massed outside the hotel hosting the luncheon, the worried business owners inundated the governor with questions regarding the Boycott Arizona initiative and its effect on their bottom line.

Although she attempted to placate them, business owners could sense the mood of the protesters and see how serious they are about crippling Arizona business in response to this vicious attack on all working people.

In 1987, when then-Gov. Evan Mecham canceled the state’s Martin Luther King Holiday, a boycott Arizona campaign was successful in getting the King Holiday reinstated.

On to May Day! Boycott Arizona! Divest from the apartheid-like police state!

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